Land(e)scape by architect/artist duo Casagrande & Rintala in 1999 was one of my favorite installations. After the group dissolved, Marco Casagrande continued to explore the boundary between architecture and art.

I’m not an up to date person and didn’t know until now that Marco Casagrande has actually been building houses (my apology to the architect!) …

Chen House built in 2008 by Marco Casagrande, Frank Chen and the crew is almost as striking as Tadao Ando’s Azuma House. NO, this house may be better than Ando’s 1976 masterpiece – Ando’s early houses tried to recreate ‘tough’ living environment (coldness, dampness, and other inconveniences), but Chen House simply embraces its environment, including typhoons, earthquakes, flooding and heat.

Chen House reminds me of the very basic of Judo and Aikido, “yield to win.”

In 1995, after working for Shigeru Ban Architect, Makiko Tsukada set out to start her own practice in Tokyo.

Tsukada’s highly refined design sensibilities could be attributed to her earlier experiences at Obayashi Corporation, one of the major construction/engineering company in Japan, and at Minoru Takeyama Architect & U/A.